What A Day - The Economy Catches Coronavirus

Episode Date: March 10, 2020

Yesterday, US stock markets had their worst day since the financial crisis in 2008. So many investors were selling off assets that trading was temporality halted in the morning and by the day’s end, the Dow finished down nearly 8 percent. We discuss this and more COVID-19 updates. Six more states are voting today just a week after Super Tuesday, where former VP Joe Biden won big and became the leader in delegates. We zero in on Michigan, the state with the most delegates today and one that Democrats narrowly lost to President Trump in 2016. And in headlines: New York state has a problematic new hand sanitizer, horse doping, and former Mayor Bloomberg returns to giving his money away.

It's Tuesday, March 10th. I'm Akilah Hughes. And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is what a day coming to you on a day some are calling Big Tuesday. Well, it's not quite super, but it's not little. Just Big Tuesday. Should be Humongous Tuesday. That's right. Big Chungus Tuesday. On today's show, several states are holding Democratic primaries. We focus on Michigan, then some headlines. But first, coronavirus news. The mysterious coronavirus. The coronavirus in China. Deadly new strain of coronavirus. The dangerous coronavirus from China. More than 200

cases of coronavirus. Coronavirus. All right. Nobody panic, but we have even more COVID-19 news. As confusion, quarantines, and desperation for tests continue to spread, so do economic fears worldwide. And domestically, things took a turn. Yesterday, U.S. stock markets had their worst day since the financial crisis in 2008. In fact, so many investors were selling off assets that trading was temporarily halted in the morning. They do that to prevent flash crashes. By the end of the day, the Dow finished down nearly 8%. Akilah, help me? Okay, so I'm not a CPA. I have no financial advice, but I can at least tell you what's going on. So a combination of global coronavirus fears and oil market price

drops led to the disastrous day in the markets yesterday. Oil and gas companies took a hit, as well as the companies that do business with them, and travel stocks remain down. And businesses that are sensitive to economic swings like manufacturing and banking also felt that squeeze. But on the flip side, if there's, you know, a good news, Clorox and Dollar Tree and a lot of medical tech companies were on the up and up. OK. News, Clorox and Dollar Tree and a lot of medical tech companies were on the up and up. Okay. Donald Trump addressed the nation last night after pressure from lawmakers and said he'd like to work with Congress to assuage the burden on hourly workers and small businesses. So with any luck, and who has luck these days, the Trump administration will treat this situation with the care it deserves.

You know, that is what I expect from him. Well, in addition to economic turmoil, there's been increased disappointment with the Trump administration over its conflicting messages with the CDC. Tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. So Trump has gone on the record several times undermining the severity of the virus and its potential spread. And over the weekend, a whistleblower accused the administration of ignoring and obscuring the CDC's recommendation that elderly and immune-compromised individuals stop traveling by plane. So no telling how much damage was done there. But to relay the things the government is now saying,

now, not last week, but right now, Vice President Pence is recommending people not take cruise vacations. Yeah, for obvious reasons. I don't think anybody's chomping on the bit to get on a cruise ship. You know, by the way, those passengers from that cruise ship that was stranded off of California,

they're now being evacuated and quarantined in Oakland. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has officially stated that elderly people and those with underlying health conditions should avoid flying. So again, don't fly. And all the while, Donald Trump has been tweeting absolutely unhelpful garbage, minimizing the problem and saying it's not as bad as the flu. Yeah. And like the flu is bad. Yeah. And coronavirus is more deadly and more contagious. So maybe we should take this moment seriously. Trump also tweeted that as the stocks fell to hell this morning pretty badly. But where the rest of us live in the real world, let's talk a little bit about what's shutting down now.

Sure. So because of stupid bullshit like his tweets, local governments are having to step up their own measures because the federal government is just like unreliable. And more and more events are being canceled and postponed. Several upcoming St. Patrick's Day celebrations have been canceled, including parades in Boston. That's following Ireland's lead in containment efforts. I don't know if you've ever been out in New York, you know, during St. Patrick's Day. But yeah, I think people drinking and puking in the streets is probably something we can do after the threat of pandemic is gone. Make it go away forever. And with several cases in Riverside County, California, the pressure is mounting on

Coachella to make an announcement. Billboard.com reported late last night that organizers are in talks about postponing it until October. In Georgia, Fulton County schools in the suburbs of Atlanta announced they would start closing today, the largest U.S. district to do so after an employee tested positive. In Washington state, where there's that very major outbreak, Governor Jay Inslee said officials are considering, quote, mandatory measures for social distancing as part of the state's effort to combat the outbreak. The University of Washington in Seattle is doing remote classes until the end of the quarter and will reassess then. Loads more colleges in California and New York are also instituting similar measures, which calls into question,

you know, is March Madness even happening? Yeah, there's no global pandemic university on our bracket, unfortunately. Well, yeah, you're right. But just so we're all up to speed on the international front, travel in and out of Italy is being halted as the government implements their northern quarantine procedure nationwide. Delta announced they'll halt flights to Rome starting tomorrow. The first schools in China are reopening as the spread of the virus has slowed, and our recommendations are the same. Visit cdc.gov slash COVID-19 to stay up to date. Wash your hands like you touched a jalapeno and have to take out your contacts. If you can, limit your exposure to large groups and travel,

and keep listening to What A Day. I mean, we've been following this since the impeachment days. Gosh, January seems so far away now. Yo, it's Tuesday again. And you know what that means. That's right. Six more states are voting today, just a week after Super Tuesday, where former Vice President Joe Biden had a series of commanding wins, elevating him to frontrunner status in the race for the Democratic nomination. Today, Michigan, Washington, Missouri, Mississippi, Idaho and North Dakota will all vote.

And there are a total of 352 delegates up for grabs. And that's out of 4000 total. We're going to zero in on Michigan today, the state with the most delegates and one that Democrats narrowly lost to President Trump in 2016. It's seen by Democrats as a must-win state this November, and a lot of primary voters have been aiming to choose a candidate that can deliver it. Gideon, let's begin by talking through some of the state's demographics. Let's do it. So per the 2010 census, the state overall is about 79% white, 14% black, and about 5% Latino. But we need to look a little bit more granular on a granular level here because a lot of the action in this Democratic primary is going to take place in these cities that we're going to talk about. One of them is Detroit, which has the highest percentage of black voters in any American city. Flint, Michigan is in the top 10 as well. And then

you have a place like Dearborn, part of the Detroit metropolitan area that has the largest Muslim population in the United States. And for this sort of electoral argument that people are seeking, Michigan also plays host to a dozen counties that went from voting for Obama twice to voting for Trump. So the state has a lot of tangible and symbolic importance and has lots of different kinds of voters, too, despite it being known just for the image of the kind of white working class voting group. Right. So in the 2016 primary, one of the biggest polling mishaps happened in Michigan. Stunning is the word for it. Just as Hillary Clinton had been hoping to focus on the general election, Michigan voters have said not so fast. And now as the race turns

here to Ohio and elsewhere, suddenly it's a jump ball. Wow. So leading into the primary, Hillary Clinton was ahead by an average of over 21 points and ended up losing to Senator Bernie Sanders by one and a half points. So yikes. This time, Sanders faces Biden and a polling deficit going in again. This is an important state for Sanders. You know, winning it would serve as a lifeline for his campaign after last week, and it would help him to argue that he can win back, you know, the all important Midwest come November. Biden is also trying to make that case. So where did Sanders do well last time and where are he and Biden really hoping to do well this time? Yeah, so last time for context here, Michigan was

kind of a turning point in the 2016 primary. And Sanders campaign is really hoping that it serves that same role again this time. Meanwhile, Biden is continuing to consolidate support from elected officials, including an important endorsement from Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who won a commanding victory that included both suburban and more rural counties, basically one of the models for winning in Michigan. Whitmer beat a challenger that ran further to her left in the primary as well. But back to the polling discrepancy, there were a number of factors as to why pollsters missed the Sanders win last time. Polling was off because they didn't have good data on the previous Democratic primary in 2008.

So it's harder to compare. Pollsters ended up underestimating youth turnout. They also underestimated the Sanders support from black voters in the state, which during that primary, at least, was higher than it was in many other states at the time. And that's just a little bit on the polling discrepancy last time, which I want to caution doesn't mean that there will be one this time. Biden could win big. We just have to wait and see. Also, turnout for, you know, our tracking purposes here in that 2016 primary was relatively low. But if you fast forward to 2018 in the midterm elections, you know, a lot more solid in terms of how many people were coming out. Yeah. And hopefully turnout is going to be up this year. So let's get into some of the areas in Michigan to watch for tonight.

Yeah, just a couple here. So in the county that includes Detroit in 2016, Clinton won. She also won the county Flint is in, but it was closer there. Overall, though, per exit polls, there was about a 70 to 30 split in favor of Clinton among black voters. These areas are, again, critically important now to both Biden and Sanders. And you can see it in some of the events that they've been scheduling over the last couple of days. Last night, Biden held a get out the vote event in Detroit with Senators Harris and Booker. Booker just endorsed him on Monday. One of Biden's major strengths on Super Tuesday, if not, you know, the top one was his performance with with black voters and one that will likely lead to other dominating wins in different states today. So Biden overwhelmingly won with black voters in southern states on Super Tuesday. The question now outside of those states in that region

is whether his support among these black voters is as crazy high in the Midwest as it was there. Then for Sanders during the day on Monday, he held a coronavirus health roundtable in Detroit. And then he had an event in Dearborn on Saturday. The Sanders campaign is banking on Muslim and Arab American support again, and has earned endorsements from elected officials and a local publication there. All right. And what are some of the other important spots? Well, Ann Arbor, home to University of Michigan, which means lots of college students, as is Lansing, where Michigan State is. Sanders won in the area around Ann Arbor last time. And, you know, again, just look at where

the events are taking place. They had a big rally with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the University of Michigan just a few days ago. But the one key asterisk of this is young voter turnout to this point in the primary has been lacking, which is hurting Sanders. But one other region to watch where both Biden and Sanders have campaigned is West Michigan. That's where Grand Rapids is kind of traditionally a Republican stronghold. And in Kent County, which includes Grand Rapids, Sanders won pretty handily in the primary and Clinton narrowly lost it to Trump in the general. So if there is like some sort of close race going on over there, that's another area where, you know, we want to be paying attention to how Biden and Sanders are doing. But now let's hear a little bit of the recent closing arguments from them.

Here's Biden in Flint. We cannot. We have to fight. But we cannot become like the other team. As much as we want to fight and push back, I refuse to accept the proposition that this is, that the other team is a never-ending enemy. They're not our enemy, they're our opposition. And presidents have to not only be able to fight, but they also have to be able to heal. And so it's really, really important that we heal this country. And no matter what is said, no matter what attacks are personal, and we all know how Donald Trump will act and the people around him.

It's not about me. It's about the American people. And here's Sanders in Dearborn. I reject the idea. I really do. That's one of the things that bothers me. And I hear it every day. I hear it on the media. I hear from my opponents. Bernie is an extremist. Bernie is too radical. OK, Let's deal with it. Is raising a starvation minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, which has not been raised in 10 years, to $15 an hour a living wage a radical idea? No! Is making public colleges and universities tuition- free so that all of our people have the opportunity to get a higher education in a competitive global economy. Is that a radical idea?

No. We'll have special coverage of the results tomorrow morning in Michigan and all the voting states. Get out and vote if you're in one of those states and we will talk to you soon. And now for some ads. Let's wrap up with some headlines. Headlines. The price of oil plummeted yesterday following a dispute between Russia and Saudi Arabia. Over the weekend, Russia rejected a proposal by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries asking the country to cut its oil production.

OPEC's suggestion was an attempt to address a global slump in oil demand because of the coronavirus. Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, was not happy with Russia's decision and retaliated by saying it would flood the market with too much oil. With low demand and high supply, prices became immensely cheaper. Yes, they made me take Econ 101 to host this podcast, and I'm killing it. Me too, unfortunately. He's not as good. Okay, all of this led to oil prices in the U.S. experiencing its worst drop since 1991.

Some gas stations in Cleveland, Ohio, were already seeing prices as low as $1.83. I'm moving to Cleveland. Hand sanitizer is a precious resource in the age of COVID-19, and New York state officials have come up with their own unsettling way to make it. That's right, using prison labor. New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo said that inmates are making 100,000 gallons of hand sanitizer per week at the Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Washington, New York. The brand is called NYS Clean, and it will be distributed free of charge to schools and high risk communities. Critics have pointed out that prisoners in New York make an average of 65 cents

per hour, which is why this costs the state so little. It's not clear whether inmates in New York will be able to actually use the hand sanitizer. Most prisons don't allow sanitizers because they contain alcohol. Worth noting here that prison populations are highly susceptible to coronavirus due to close quarters and unsanitary conditions. Okay, well, if you're looking for a new thing to be upset about, that thing is here, and it's called horse doping. The federal government charged 27 horse race employees

for participating in a performance enhancing drug scheme, which netted millions of dollars in prize money and led to the deaths of many horses. The most prominent trainers implicated were Jason Service and Jorge Navarro, who worked together to use dangerous drugs with names like red acid and monkey to make horses run faster and feel no pain. Horse racing in America has long relied on performance enhancing drugs and suffered from lax regulations. As a result, the fatality rate on American racetracks is anywhere from two and a half to five times greater than the rate in Europe and Asia. Shouldn't be injecting anything called monkey.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg has put his very expensive run for president behind him, and now he's back to doing the one thing he's good at. Oh, stopping and frisking black people? That is one of them. The other one is giving money away to legitimately good causes. He gave $2 million to Collective Future earlier this week. That's a nonprofit that's working to register 500,000 black voters in battleground states. $2 million, though, is less than 1% of what Mike spent to get nuked on the debate

stage by Elizabeth Warren and win several cul-de-sacs in Beverly Hills, but it is still very nice. Not all is well in Bloomworld, though. Many of Bloomberg's staff members are upset after they were laid off on Monday despite language in their contracts saying they'd be employed through November to support the Democratic nominee, whether it was Bloomberg or not. Most staffers will get their last paycheck on March 31st. And if they want to keep feeling the bloom, they'll have to reapply to work in offices that will remain open in battleground states. And those are the headlines.

That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, give us a boost so we can grab oranges off the neighbor's tree and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just thousands of books on blankets like me, what a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at cricket.com slash subscribe. I'm Akilah Hughes.

I'm Gideon Resnick. And have a very big Tuesday. There's Fat Tuesday, Big Tuesday, Super Tuesday. That's it. Big Tuesday. There's Fat Tuesday, Big Tuesday, Super Tuesday. That's it. What a Day is a product of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis. Sonia Tunn is our assistant producer.

Our head writer is John Milstein, and our senior producer is Katie Long. Our theme music is by Colin Gileard and Kashaka.